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Thread: i5 2500k build

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    i5 2500k build

    I'm getting myself an i5 2500k and 8 GB DDR3-1600 ram in the near future (think within the next 7 days likely) but need to decide on a motherboard to go with it.

    My budget is around £80 or so. I could perhaps stretch a little higher, but money is tight so I want to keep it as cheap as possible.

    The computer will be used solely for gaming (1920x1200), although I am aware that I will need a new graphics card soon. Ideally I would like the motherboard to be Gen3 so I can take PCIe3.0 cards and have Crossfire/SLI capability just in case. I also need a PCI slot for my soundcard.

    Any suggestions? I'm not averse to buying second hand if needs be. There is also a certain eBay store selling the ASRock Extreme4 Z77 board - 2 PCIe3.0 (16/0 or 8/8) which seems to have everything I'd need, but how advisable is adopting a new technology in it's first incarnation?

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    Re: i5 2500k build

    Hold off buying your parts til next month, alot of new stuff is coming out which will push prices down. Personally I'm waiting. The Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 motherboard seems the best one for your budget at £75 according to my research of reviews etc but I could be wrong. I'm currently deciding over that or the MSI 1155 Intel P67 for £95 myself. I'm also provisionally going for the i5 2500k CPU, but who knows what the new CPUs will bring?

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    Re: i5 2500k build

    Quote Originally Posted by Ollie- View Post
    Hold off buying your parts til next month, alot of new stuff is coming out which will push prices down. Personally I'm waiting. The Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 motherboard seems the best one for your budget at £75 according to my research of reviews etc but I could be wrong. I'm currently deciding over that or the MSI 1155 Intel P67 for £95 myself. I'm also provisionally going for the i5 2500k CPU, but who knows what the new CPUs will bring?
    The CPU will probably decrease in price, but I dont think the ram or mobo will shift much. Pretty much the only difference between Z68 and Z77 is native USB3. Perhaps to get rid of the remaining stock etailers might bring down prices on an individual basis, but I wouldnt expect a widespread large decrease.

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    Re: i5 2500k build

    CPU will be superceded iirc with IB.

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    Re: i5 2500k build

    IB is out on the 29th, but preliminary ES benchmarks only really suggest a dramatic improvement where onboard graphics are concerned, only a minor one in real life/game situations. They also run HOT when overclocked. There's one ES chip, which whilst stable, hit 100C - not sure I want that in my PC.

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    Re: i5 2500k build

    I have to question the hot thing. Without setup and OC details I'm a bit skeptical. Its a die shrink and runs hotter? Surely Intel have done this enough times by now not to get it wrong and its a ES so a large chance. I mean even if it is not much of an improvement as I understand it they will be launched at the same price hence a drop in SB prices.

    Hitting 100C may not be such a bad thing; it may be limited by thermals rather than any other stability factors.

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    Re: i5 2500k build

    Quote Originally Posted by Domestic_Ginger View Post
    I have to question the hot thing. Without setup and OC details I'm a bit skeptical. Its a die shrink and runs hotter? Surely Intel have done this enough times by now not to get it wrong and its a ES so a large chance. I mean even if it is not much of an improvement as I understand it they will be launched at the same price hence a drop in SB prices.

    Hitting 100C may not be such a bad thing; it may be limited by thermals rather than any other stability factors.
    The CPUs are running hot when overclocked and overvolted from what I gather,and not at stock settings.

    IB is supposed to be around 166MM2 whereas SB is around 216MM2. On top of this in IB the GPU part takes up a larger percentage of the surface area of the die than the CPU part when compared to SB:

    http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Int...out,14782.html



    It is quite possible the watts/mm2 dissipated for the IB CPU section is higher than SB leading to higher temperatures.

    OTH,there might be other considerations too. After all the main reason Intel used 22NM FINFETS was for improved performance at lower voltages. Hence at higher voltages we don't know if there are additional problems and TBH since most of the CPUs are not going to be overclocked anyway,Intel is not going to be really that bothered I suspect.

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    • Hidden Hippo's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Gigabyte Z68AP-D3
      • CPU:
      • i5 2500k (stock)
      • Memory:
      • 8GB Corsair Ballistix 1600MHz
      • Storage:
      • 250GB WD Caviar
      • Graphics card(s):
      • HD4870 1GB
      • PSU:
      • Tagan TG530-U15 530W
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      • Operating System:
      • Windows 7 64-bit
      • Monitor(s):
      • BenQ FP241W

    Re: i5 2500k build

    The concern is that adopting IB (especially with Haswell only 18 months away) will be a bad move for overclocking. I'd like to be able to do some, and having a processor running very hot always makes me uneasy.

    Will I lose out on anything which will make a real world difference by staying on Z68 rather than moving to a Z77 board? I know on-chipset USB3.0 is nice, and crossfire in x16/x16 is nice, but graphics cards from what I've read don't tax PCIe2 x8 in terms of bandwidth needed.

    Edit: How much of a price drop is usually seen on CPUs? From past experience, they only drop by £10-£20 or so when the new chips are released, and they had a drop pretty recently.
    Last edited by Hidden Hippo; 13-03-2012 at 06:55 PM.

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    Re: i5 2500k build

    I would be inclined to wait for a little while as there is bound to be some price drop. Out of the current crop of Z68 boards I would highly recommend you try and get the Asus P8Z68 v/Gen3 (you don't need the pro). I've had used Asrock and Gigabyte and Asus would take it.

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    Re: i5 2500k build

    Quote Originally Posted by Wam7 View Post
    Out of the current crop of Z68 boards I would highly recommend you try and get the Asus P8Z68 v/Gen3 (you don't need the pro).
    I agree, I think most motherboards with the same chipsets are within a few percent apart from each other in terms of performance scores, so it is things like build quality and features that set them apart, I tend to prefer the Asus pedigree over other brands, but I would put Gigabyte in second place.

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    Re: i5 2500k build

    Quote Originally Posted by Wam7 View Post
    I would be inclined to wait for a little while as there is bound to be some price drop. Out of the current crop of Z68 boards I would highly recommend you try and get the Asus P8Z68 v/Gen3 (you don't need the pro). I've had used Asrock and Gigabyte and Asus would take it.
    I have the Asus gen3 and it's fantastic. Did you decide on board?

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    Re: i5 2500k build

    MSI boards would be my second choice.

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